A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN

US, 1945, 128 minutes, Black and white.
Dorothy Maguire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Lloyd Nolan, James Gleeson, Ted Donaldson, Peggy Ann Garner, Ruth Nelson.
Directed by Elia Kazan.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was the first of twenty films directed by Elia Kazan, the beginning of an extraordinarily distinguished screen career. (Kazan also had a very strong stage career, especially in directing A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway with Jessica Tandy and Marlon Brando.)

Kazan was always interested in social themes in the United States. He himself was born in Turkey (the subject of his autobiographical 1963 film, America America, also known as The Anatolian Smile). While he distinguished himself in his film-making, he incurred a great number of enemies because of his giving names to the House of Un American Activities Commission. This haunted him all during his life and there were protests even at the beginning of the 21st century when he was awarded a Life Oscar.

However, his films still stand the test of time and are interesting as perspectives on the United States in the 1940s to the 1960s. He was to win an Oscar for Gentleman’s Agreement in 1947 which had themes of anti-Semitism. Pinky in 1949 was concerned with racial issues. Panic in the Streets, with Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier focused on plague as well as racism. In 1951 he directed A Streetcar Named Desire with the three major members of the cast winning Oscars. Marlon Brando was not to win an Oscar but did so for Kazan’s On the Waterfront, for which he also won another director’s Oscar, in 1954. He had controversy with East of Eden and Baby Doll. During the 1960s he made Wild River about dam-building in the United States, Splendor in the Grass which introduced Warren Beatty and The Arrangement based on his own novel. His last film, with Robert de Niro, was The Last Tycoon based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The action of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn takes place in New York City around 1900. The focus is on the Nolan family, living in poverty. The centre of the film is Francie Nolan played by Peggy Ann Garner. Peggy Ann Garner was awarded a special Oscar for this performance. She appeared in Jane Eyre and other films at 20th Century- Fox and also as an adult in Black Widow. However, she did not make the transition to being an adult star, something like her contemporary Margaret O’ Brien.

Dorothy Maguire plays above her age (twenty-five when the film was made) as Francie’s mother. James Dunn, who won the Oscar for best supporting actor, is the alcoholic father. Joan Blondell is very good as Aunt Cissy who has a succession of men friends.

The film was very strong on detail, building up its impact by small events, character interactions. It is a very moving film and a strong piece of Americana.

It was remade as a telemovie in 1974. It ran for only 74 minutes. It starred Cliff Robertson and Diane Baker as the parents and Pamelyn Ferdin as Francie. (Pamelyn Ferdin was not a big name on the screen but she had a consistent career for many decades on television.)

1. The meaning of the title and the use of the symbol of the tree in the film? Francie as the tree in Brooklyn? Her growth?

2. How effective was the black and white photography of the location settings in Brooklyn? the creation of atmosphere? How important was the musical commentary from contemporary musicals of the twenties? How did this comment on the behaviour? Unobtrusively?

3. Who was the central character of the film? Katie Nolan or Francie? Why? Where did the film focus its attention for the audience? With whom did the audience most identify?

4. What was the overall impact in terms of feeling and sentiment? Why was it ennobling? A good film?

5. Did you think its picture of life in Brooklyn was real? Tenements, the shops, life on Saturday? Schooling? poverty?

6. How admirable a person was Katie Nolan? The meaning of her life and her struggles? As a hard kind of person because of her life? Her love for her children, yet her stoniness? Her love for her husband yet her disappointment in him? How well did she cope with life? How? How much sympathy did she draw from the audience?

7. Why had she married Johnny? Did he have charm? Blarney? How good a man was he? dreams? His love for his wife and yet her sense of realism breaking his fantasies? the truth about their marriage?

8. How important a character was Francie? As a little girl? Her looking at life and understanding it? Her love and idealisation of her father? Her yearnings for so much? Her relationship with Neeley? Her wanting to study? Her writing? Her feeling that her mother didn’t love her? Didn’t love her father? How well was this a picture of a typical young girl?

9. Was Neely a typical young boy? Which incidents illustrated his boyishness best? His relationship to Francie? Love for his father and mother?

10. The picture of Brooklyn on a Saturday? the children that they met, the games, selling rags? In and out of the home, their mother working? Visits? What, insight into the meaning of life did these sequences give?

12. Did you like Aunt Sissy? She seemed silly but she was wise. How silly a woman was she?? as regards her marriage and calling her husbands Bill, her fussing and flightiness? How wise was she in the insight she had into the situations? Her telling Katie that she was too hard? Her manoeuvring of the children? Getting them to behave? the relationship of Sissy to her mother and Katie to her mother? the migrant mother and the overtones of migration and settling into a new country?

12. Was Mc Shane a central character? Was he a conventional Irish- New York policeman? His courtesy? His helping Johnnie? The way that Katie treated him rather severely? And yet his care for the children? Being a widower? Was it inevitable that he would propose to Katie in the end? Why?

13. How vivid a picture of practical poverty did the film give? In the Nolans moving upstairs to the other flat? In not having enough money to go to school? How did the film show people coping with their poverty? How important was the atmosphere of drink, the ruin that drink can bring? Johnnie and his unreliability and his losing his job? His dreaming of better jobs? His collapse and the reason for his death?

14. The film made much of education. The fact that Francie wanted to be educated? The arrangements for her going to the school? The sequences in the school, Francie’s hunger and poverty? Her stories? advice she got from the teacher about telling the truth and experience? Of not making up fables? rhe graduation ceremony etc? How important was this for the whole film?

15. How did the film illustrate the words of the teacher about truth and stories? What is truth?

16. The atmosphere of death? How well was this handled? Soberly? With feeling?

17. How did it contrast with the pregnancy and the birth? How important was the birth sequence? the experience of giving birth for Katie? Why did she want the child?

18. The importance of the birth for Francie? In feeling being needed by her mother? In not remaining alone?

19. The importance of the graduation and Aunt Sissy’s intervention with the bouquet from, her father? How was this a culmination and a goal for Francie? And the whole family?

20. Mc Shane’s proposal to Katie Nolan? Did he do it well? Why could the children accept this? What future did they have?

21. How wise a film was this in its presentation of real people and real situations? Of people coping and experiencing life? What can any audience learn from films like this? Do films like this give people an uplift? Why?